


Too Much to Ask

by ariannenymerosmartell (somethingmoo)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 02:03:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2091660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingmoo/pseuds/ariannenymerosmartell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Sometimes I find myself overwhelmingly sad about characters I usually don't give a second thought to. And it occurred to me, when I did give a second thought to Jorah, that despite him being such a central character, we know little of who he was before Daenerys.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Too Much to Ask

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes I find myself overwhelmingly sad about characters I usually don't give a second thought to. And it occurred to me, when I did give a second thought to Jorah, that despite him being such a central character, we know little of who he was before Daenerys.

His whole life, he’s been wanting, always feeling as thought he’d been lacking for something or the other.

He’d wanted a mother. He imaged she wouldn’t be gruff like father, wouldn’t drag him from his bed before the sun was up to train in the yard. She’d dress his aches and kiss his brow and call him “son, sweet son,” not just “boy,” the way father did.

He imagined he might call her “mama,” even though it wasn’t proper, but she would laugh, airy and sweet, and call him her baby boy, and maybe even father would smile a little more, if only he’d had a mother.

He’d spent so long wanting and wishing for a mother.

He wanted a brother. Mayhaps an older one to help guide him, to stand up to father for him, when he pushed him too hard, expected too much. An older brother who would take the title of heir, who would take the pressure away, make it easier for him just to be. Or mayhaps he wanted a younger one whom he could teach, and protect, and treat kindly. A younger brother whom he would train in the yard, not before dawn, no, but when the sun in bright. They’d train after they’d broken their fasts, and his little brother would be filled with energy and zeal to fight and learn.

He’d had sisters though, not proper sisters in truth, for they were cousins not sisters, but he treated them as little sisters all the same. And they were fierce and proud, each one a warrior, each one bold and brave, when they shouted _Here We Stand_ and charged at him with blunted weapons—mace, and axe, and morningstar against his tourney sword.

But he thinks he might have wanted a sister who would gentle him. Who would cheer him on, and tease him by turns. A sister who would sneak into his rooms at night and tell him her secrets and he would tell her all of his. A sister whose bacon he would steal off her plate, whilst she nicked his applecakes, and they’d giggle together. A sister he’d stand up for when their father tried to make a match for her, because no one would ever have been good enough for his sister.

He’d wanted an uncle who would jape with him, and sneak him horns of ale whenever his father’s back was turned. An uncle he’d train with too, one who would be impressed by his progress, who’d praise him and tell him he’d be a great warrior someday. Not like his father, who only ever grunted, “Needs work,” and went on his way.

He has an aunt though, an aunt whom he loves fiercely, though she seems ambivalent about him at best. _She_ sneaks him horns of ale, though, but she beats him bloody when he tries to take any himself. She praises his prowess with a sword, but tells him the axe is better suited to Bear Island. “You’re to be a Northern Lord,” she tells him, a little bitterly. “Not some Southron tourney knight.” But he keeps at his sword, and he tells her someday that he will have many sons, many sons to bear his name, and she warns him against raising soft little lordlings, because the North was hard and cold, and meant for hard cold, and that women could be so much harder and colder than men could ever hope to be. He’d wonder, many a night in Lys, if she had wanted to be the Lord in truth, and resented him and his birth for robbing her of the title of heir. He wonders if she loved him, now. He wanted her to.

He’d wanted the sword. He’d wanted Longclaw, but he’d wanted Longclaw to be a two-handed greatsword, not some bastard sword, and when he’d said as much to his father, even offered to pay for the improvement, his father had shaken his head. “You’re never satisfied,” he’d said. “It will lead you to sorrow.”

And it had, it had, all of his wanting and yearning, had brought him more sorrow and pain, enough for a lifetime, three lifetimes. But even with the warning, solemn and stern from his solemn and stern father, he’d wanted still.

His father had taken the black then, named him Lord of Bear Island, left him in charge. He thought it was what he wanted, but then he thought, perhaps, that he should have asked his father to stay, told his father that he would wait, that he was in no rush to be Lord. He should have told his father that he wanted to learn more, first, that he wanted to follow his example. He should have told his father that he was just a young boy, with a new wife, and wasn’t ready to be a Lord, but he thought he wanted to be, and his father wanted him to be ready, so he stayed silent. He’d stood with his wife, the Lady of Bear Island, and swore fealty to Lord Eddard Stark in Winterfell’s Great Hall.

His first wife had left him wanting too, though he tried not to show it. He had been young, and she younger, but she had been brash and bold, and _Northern_ , his aunt would remind him later, when he was selling every possession he had to make his Southron bride happy. He’d tried to love her, had _wanted_ to love her, despite her plain face, and calloused hands. He _should_ have loved her, but when he looked at her, all he saw was Alysanne, and though he loved Alysanne he couldn’t love his wife.

And sons, he wanted sons, but she brought forth blood and death, each time. He never hated her though, never blamed her. Thought perhaps it was him, because the gods knew and the gods saw that he didn’t love her enough. And then she’d died after the third miscarriage, bleeding out a son, and he had known that the gods were punishing him for wanting so much.

It didn’t stop him.

He fights in the Greyjoy Rebellion with fierce pride and deadly skill. He kills more men than he can count, and he is the first through the breach in the siege of Pyke. He kills more men with his sword, than King Robert Baratheon kills with his warhammer, more even than Eddard Stark kills with Ice. And King Robert has him kneel, right there, in all the blood that was spilled and dubs him “ser,” and he is a knight now, and decides, in Lannisport, before the tourney the King plans to take his vows in a Sept, because if he is to be a knight, he might as well be an anointed knight, a knight proper. He feels no guilt about doing so in the sight of the Seven. The Old Gods stole his sons and condemned his wanting. The Old Gods want nothing to do with him now, and he wants nothing to do with them.

The Seven have given him victory and a knighthood, and when he sees Lynesse, even from far, shining as brightly as the sun itself, he knows the Seven have given him a new wife.

He begs a favor from her, and though everyone else is, he is not surprised when she grants it. He knows, he feels, the Seven _want_ this for him. He fells every man he faces and when he names Lynesse Queen of Love and Beauty, she leans down and kisses his cheek and calls him the grandest knight who ever lived. _Her_ knight. And when he asks her father for her hand, he does so knowing that she _wants_ him as much as he wants her.

They are happy, and he is happy, and his dream of sons returns to him in a flood. Sons with her golden hair and sky blue eyes, with his height and strength at arms. Sons who would rule Bear Island. Sons who would be knights and lords.

He wants to return home quickly, with his dreams of sons, wants to return home and receive the praise from his aunt and cousins on successes at war, on his new wife. But when he returns home they have nary a word for him except scorn for his title, scorn for the Seven, scorn for the soft little wife he has brought back. 

“What will she do when winter comes, brother?” Dacey asks him, though not unkindly, not as her mother had been when she’d taken Lynesse’s hands and laughed at them, and said that winter would teach her to be hard.

“She will stand,” he says, because those are his words, _Here We Stand_. And he wants her to. He wants her to, and that should be enough.

She doesn’t. It isn’t.

She grows distant, and miserable, and month after month her moonblood comes, and there are no sons, never any sons, and soon he cannot bear her misery and her unhappiness. He cannot stand it.

He overhears his aunt tell Dacey that the Old Gods simply don’t want soft little lordlings in their lands, but it is in Lys that he learns that she took moontea regularly, to kill any babes, to kill his sons, because she thought that if she didn’t bear him a son he’d let her go home.

“It would have been easier to leave if I had no children,” is what she tells him, unapologetically. It is one of the last things she ever says to him.

But before he knows this, he does anything he can to make her smile. He sells what little valuables he has, to bring her jewels and gowns, but it is never enough. He signs his name of slips of paper and promises to pay back soon, some day, but he never can, and even that is not enough. She wants even more than he does, she wants more than he _is_ , and when he captures those poachers on his land, his thoughts are not about the law or about honor. They are about making her want _him_ again.

It doesn’t work.

They flee, in the dead of night, taking with them only the bare minimum. He leaves the sword, because he knows his father would want him to, because he wants his father to not hate him too much. He wants his father to forgive him someday. Forgive him for failing, for not taking the black, for not being the son he wanted.

Lynesse insists on Lys, refusing to listen to why Braavos or Pentos might be better options, but only after he talks her out of Oldtown.

“My father would keep me safe in Oldtown,” she tells him excitedly, describing the foods she wants, and the silk gowns she dreams of. But when he reminds her that Eddard Stark has declared his life forfeit across all the Seven Kingdoms, she only asks if hers is forfeit as well. It is only when he lies, and tells her it might be, that she agrees to board the ship, but only if they go to Lys.

She leaves him within four moons.

He is a sellsword, tired and aching always, battered down by the sweltering heat, and he goes home one day to find that he no longer has a home. That Lynesse has moved into her new lover’s manse and sold their home and took the profit for herself.

“I wanted more, Jorah,” is what she tells him. _That_ is the last thing he hears her say.

He still loves and hates her in equal measure.

He goes to Volantis then, and sells his sword to the highest bidder and he kills more men and women too, and he never prays. The gods, Old and New, want nothing to do with him, and he wants nothing to do with them. And somewhere all of his wanting changes and he just want to go home.

He wants to re-do the last years of his life, and he wants to go home to the cool, clean air of Bear Island. To the icy pools, and dark woods. To the snows and bitter winds. He wants his bear pelt, draped around his shoulders, made from the first bear he’d ever killed when he was just one and ten. But he remembers that he sold that pelt to pay for some gown Lynesse had never worn, and that to go home means to bare his neck for the headman’s block and for Stark’s Ice.

But as always. He still wants.

So when the man comes to him with the note that he might be pardoned, _that he can go home_ , in exchange for information on two small children, he doesn’t hesitate, because he wants to go home. That’s all he wants.

But then he sees her, and nothing is the same anymore.

At first, he fights it. It will not be Lynesse all over again. Home, he is going _home_ , and some comely face and sweet words will not take that from him, not this time, but it isn’t long before the girl, becomes Daenerys, and then his Khaleesi, his Queen, because Daenerys is more than just a comely face, more than just kind words.

Daenerys is warmth, and light, and innocence, and trust. She is bright, and fierce, and fear, and strength. And she wants to go home too, and Jorah loves her for it.

Gods help him, but Jorah loves her. And he knows she loves him too. _My bear_ , she calls him, and it makes him laugh and smile, because it is _home_ , and she embraces it. And it should be enough, to be her bear, to be at her side, but because he never learns, is never satisfied, Jorah _wants_ her.

It shames him to want her so, because she is so achingly lovely, so pure and beautiful that it should be a crime to want such a girl, but then she is fierce and proud, and near fearless, and when he sees her command her _khalasar_ with a voice that is strong, and clear, and firm, how can he not think _Here We Stand_.

He does not deserve her though. He never forgets that. He never forgets that he is not handsome and young and dashing, that he has never been. He was bred in the cold, hard North, and has come out cold, and hard, but when he looks at her his eyes are soft, and when he speaks to her it is with love and warmth. Because he loves her. Wants the best for her. Wants her to have her throne, and a home, and wants to protect her while she wins it. Because he loves her.

And when he kisses her, and feels her kiss back, even for the briefest of moments, he thinks he might be done wanting, because he thinks _this_ , _her_ might be enough, that she might be home, as Lynesse never was, as his first wife never was, as _Bear Island_ never was. He would give it all up for her, if she asked, if she wanted.

But she doesn’t. And his treachery is discovered. And all he wants is to take it back. The spying, and the reports, and the lying—he wants to take it all back because though her face is hard, her eyes are full of hurt, and he hates himself, hates himself for putting it there. He wants another chance, just one more, to make it up to make it right. When he tells her that he has loved her, he does not just mean the way a man loves a woman. He loves her as a knight loves his Queen, as a friend loves a friend, as _family._ Because she is all he has left and he wants just one more chance, that’s all he wants, because he knows, _he knows_ , he’s the only one who truly has her best interests at heart, and who truly knows what must be done to get her home. Ser Barristan is too noble, Grey Worm too ignorant of Westerosi politics, Missandei too young, her _khalasar_ too uncivilized. And Daario Naharis—too untrustworthy. None of these will bring her home, none of these will get her home, only he can, only he can, and _oh_ , how he _wants_ to just bring her home.

He has been a lord, a knight, a criminal, a sellsword, a protector, a Queen’s Hand—he is all the things that could bring her home, and _still_ it is not enough.

He drowns himself in wine and women then, because now he just wants to forget. He wants to erase everything, and forget himself. He wants to forget his past, his name, forget _her_ , but when the silver-haired whore places herself upon his lap, he only remembers that he is _weak_. That he is weak, and soft, and that’s why he has nothing. No wife, no sons, no Bear Island. No Daenerys.

He just wants not to be weak. Not anymore.

When he hears that the Imp’s head will fetch a lordship for anyone, and when the Imp himself come wandering into that brothel, he knows he is being tested. The weak man would take him, and flee, as he and Lynesse had fled all those years ago. The weak man would flee to King’s Landing, to Cersei Lannister, and behead her monster brother right in front of her. With no Eddard Stark, no Stark at all, he could go home and be Lord of Bear Island again.

He seizes the Imp, but takes him not to Westeros. He will gift him to Daenerys, even if he gets nothing in return, because he doesn’t want to be weak anymore. He wants to be the knight Danenerys deserves, the one she had loved, if only for a little while.

He wants, he wants, he wants.

And as always, the gods laugh in the face of his wants, and they drown his desire in storms and then in the fire of a hot brand and shackles.

The Old gods, the New gods, the Drowned god, R’Holler. They laugh at him, and his wants and they make him a slave and he wonders why they just don’t kill him. He wonders why he is still living when he hears that Daenerys has married again, when he hears that she has locked her dragons away, when he hears that she has flown off on Drogon’s back, when he hears she might be dead.

But the gods, none of them it seems, are done with him yet, and when he joins the Second Sons, he almost laughs at the bitter irony. He is a first son, a first born, heir to everything, yet never good enough, never enough. He is a first son, and a Second son, but none of it matters any more. He only wants to be better for Daenerys. A better man, a better soldier, a better helper. It doesn’t matter if he dies now, only that he manages to help her get what she wants.

That’s all he wants. Whatever Daenerys wants. That’s what he wants.


End file.
